Wild Boy by Nancy Springer

Author:Nancy Springer [Springer, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2005-11-03T05:00:00+00:00

Eight

No,” Rook said.

“But Rook, I have to cut some of your hair anyway to drain the wound and bandage it.” In the orange campfire light, under the towering darkness of the hemlock trees, Rowan looked as steely as Rook had ever seen her. “Toads take it, Rook, any dolt knows too much hair saps your strength if you’re sick. I am going to cut it all off.”

Rook had not told her, yet somehow she knew: He felt as weak as a butterfly. But just the same, he mumbled, “No.” Rook had not combed or washed or cut even the forelock of his hair since the day his father—since that day. The day that had made him an outlaw, a wolf’s head, a wild boy of the woods. Confound it, Ettarde had always been wanting to cut his black clotted hair, or comb it or wash it, and he hadn’t given in to her. And now Rowan—he had never thought Rowan would turn against him so. Defiance gave Rook enough strength to sit up, although his head spun with the effort and the stench of his own contagion filled his nostrils and made him nauseous. “A wolf doesn’t …” He blurred the words, and stopped himself from saying more, but Rowan heard.

“A wolf?” She leaned closer to him, kneeling, her face level with his. “Rook, you are not a wolf. You are a person, a swineherd’s son.” His face must have changed when she said this, for her voice softened. “Tod told us.”

Rook turned his head, and yes, there was the Sheriff’s freckled brat sitting nearby with his broken leg stretched out, holding Runkling on his lap. Scratching the little pig along the backbone and behind the ears. Runkling lay snoring with pleasure, his eyes closed. Rook noticed what long eyelashes the shoat had. And he noticed Tod’s silence, and the look in Tod’s eyes. Tod met Rook’s glaring stare with—was that pleading? The young snot had not begged when he was dying in the man trap, yet he was begging for something now?

Rowan added, “My father was friends with your father, Rook, did you know that?”

“I knew him well,” said Robin Hood’s voice out of the hemlock shadows. “Everyone knew Jack Pigkeep. A man of few words, wisely spoken. A man with a strong back, a brave arm and a generous heart. I should have guessed before now that you are his son.”

Painful memories twisted in Rook’s gut, made him bare his teeth in a snarl.

Rowan repeated, “You are his son, Rook. Would your father want you to act like a wild beast?”

“Don’t speak of him!”

Silence. Silence so deep, Rook could sense the breathing of dozens of outlaws all around him, in the shadows amid the sheltering trees.

“All right,” said Rowan softly. “But would a wolf wear a strand of my ring, Rook?”

It was as if the contagion had put poison into Rook’s heart; he wanted to snatch the silver strand resting on his bare chest, tear it off and fling it away.

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